


next door

by aghamora



Series: Flaurel Ficlets [14]
Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 11:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4875727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurel's new next-door neighbor situation is far from ideal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	next door

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: flaurel 16 - brand new neighbours au

Laurel hates moving.

She isn’t strong, so lugging boxes up and down stairs gets tiring quickly. Hanging posters and wall decorations is only fun for so long. But when she’s done, and everything has been put neatly into place, she stands in the middle of her new apartment with her hands on her hips, admiring her work with a smile.

It’s spacious, clean, and cozy; everything she’d been looking for in an apartment for her first year at Middleton. Quiet, too, just like her. It’s perfect.

Satisfied, Laurel sighs happily and plops down on the bed with her hands clasped behind her head. She closes her eyes and drifts contentedly for a while, and she is almost asleep when-

“ _Oooh God! Give it to me!_ ”

Her eyes snap open. She feels the wall thumping behind her head, a woman positively screaming in time with each  _bang, bang, bang._

Laurel sits up with a look of disgust on her face. She’d thought this place was perfect – and perfectly  _quiet_. The landlord hadn’t ever bothered to mention the paper thin walls.

But it’ll be over soon. At least the screams seem to have stopped – but hardly two seconds later, she finds that she’s spoken too soon.

“ _Frank! Jesus Christ, Frank!_ ”

She groans and wraps a pillow around her head. This has got to be some kind of joke. They’ve got to be kidding, right? She sure as hell can’t live with this, and she’s already signed a lease for the rest of the school year. If she has loud, horny neighbors, it’s way too late to find other housing near campus.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the moans and cries stop, and she has a long overdue moment of peace. And she prays – actually  _prays to God_  – that the couple on the other side of the wall won’t go for round two.

When they do, Laurel can’t say that she’s honestly surprised.

But she doesn’t have to put up with this, and she won’t. She’s never been assertive; she’s always been a wallflower, hanging in the back of the room, avoiding confrontation – but not today.

Determined, Laurel springs out of bed and saunters into the hallway, knocking on the door to the apartment next to hers boldly. She’s all but ready to tell off whoever answers, but the instant it actually swings open, all the words she’d planned to say dry up on her tongue.

Instead of the woman she’d been expecting, it’s a man: shirtless, bearded, and wearing nothing but slacks with the fly undone. Her courage evaporates in an instant. 

He looks older than her, at least by ten years, and she can only assume that he is the ‘Frank’ whose name the woman had been shrieking through her walls. His hair is slicked back, abs toned, arms bulky, and before Laurel can help it, color rises to her cheeks.

Holy hell. She hadn’t expected her sex-crazed neighbor to be…well,  _hot._

His blue eyes consider her for a moment, before he asks, “Can I help you?”

“Yeah,” she shakes her head, remembering herself. Under any other circumstances, she would shake his hand, but she’s not exactly sure where his has been recently. “Yeah, um, I’m Laurel. I-I just moved in next door, and I was wondering if you could…”

Her voice sounds small and breathy, and she hates herself for it.  _Be angry, Laurel. Be demanding. That’s what you came here to do._

“I was wondering if you could maybe keep it down? It’s just that I have an eight AM class tomorrow, and…”

She drifts off, forgetting where she was going what that, and he raises his eyebrows, amused.

‘Frank’ doesn’t miss a beat, and leans one arm against the doorway. “What can I say? I’m great in bed.”

Put off by his ego, she frowns. “Okay… maybe that’s true, but I would just  _really_  like to get some sleep-“

“ _Maybe_  that’s true? You heard her screaming, didn’t you?”

Tired of trying to be polite – because clearly it isn’t working with him – Laurel exhales sharply and snaps, “Look, I don’t care how great you are in bed. Just keep it down. Please. The walls are really thin, and I can’t sleep with you guys… doing it so loudly.”

He looks surprised by her outburst, and gives her possibly the most infuriating smirk she’s ever seen.

“Y’know,” Frank lowers his voice and leans out the door slightly, just an inch too close for comfort. “If you ever get lonely, come on over. You’re free to join in.”

Completely caught off guard by that, Laurel’s mouth drops open, and for a long moment she flounders for words.

“I-I…you…that…” she shakes her head, her mouth suddenly very dry. “That isn’t very neighborly.”

She cringes the instant the word leaves her lips. She never has been able to think well on her feet, even though she’s going into law school. Laurel’s sure he’ll mock her for it, because he seems like just the kind of pompous ass who would, but all Frank ends up doing is laughing at her and shutting the door in her face.

Baffled and fuming, she makes her way to her apartment, and it’s only after she steps back inside and closes the door behind her that she realizes he’d never actually agreed to be quieter.

And the next time they go at it next door, the moans and screams are twice as loud as they were before.

Laurel is ninety percent sure it’s just to spite her.

 

–

 

Quickly, she learns that Frank is, in every sense of the word, a man whore.

During her first week there, he brings home a different girl what seems like every night. He keeps them up all night – and Laurel, too. It’s affecting her sleep schedule, it really is. Law school is exhausting already, and having a sleazy next door neighbor isn’t helping.

She gets home late one night, and when she stops in front of the door to her apartment, she finds a little red box sitting on her doormat, with a sticky note attached. She picks it up, and reads the note with a frown.

_Thought you might need these._

_-Frank_

Laurel turns the box over, and when she sees what it is, she rolls her eyes.

Earplugs.

_Does he think this is some kind of game?_

Just then, Laurel hears footsteps climbing the stairs to her floor. Quickly, she reaches into her bag for her keys, and is about to start looking through them when none other than Frank appears at the top of the stairs, dressed in a tailored three-piece suit and carrying a briefcase.

She gulps, her cheeks burning. She’s never seen him like  _this_. She hates him, but she has to admit he looks damn good in a suit.

She realizes that she’s staring the same moment Frank does, and he grins, setting down his briefcase and removing his keys from his pocket.

“Get my present?” he asks. “Figured you’d need ‘em.”

She scoffs and turns her attention to searching through her keys. “I was thinking of investing in some, yeah. Or you could just be polite, and keep it down.”

“That would be the  _neighborly_ thing to do, wouldn’t it?” Frank teases. She clenches her jaw, and he turns to her, eyes softening in the most disarming way. “I never introduced myself. Name’s Frank.”

“Trust me, I know,” she deadpans. “I’ve been hearing it screamed through my wall all week.”

He actually has the gall to shrug. “Sorry about that. It can get a bit loud.”

“Look, I don’t want to fight with you. But it was my first week of law school, and I really need my sleep, and if you could just be a  _little_ considerate-“

“Saw you checking out the suit,” he interrupts her, pushing open his door. “My offer still stands, you know.”

She’s so exasperated that she can’t even find the words to express herself for a moment, and she fumbles through her keys for what seems like the hundredth time, unable to find the one to her apartment.

Finally, Laurel settles on, “I don’t even know you.”

“Exactly,” he looks at her suggestively, his eyes roaming her body. “Get to know me better.”

She ignores that. “You’re an egotistical jerk. And a creep.”

Instead of being pissed, he looks intrigued. “What’d you say your name was again? Lauren?”

“Laure _l_.”

He pretends not to hear. “Well, welcome to the neighborhood, Lauren.”

Finally, she locates her key and shoves her door open, just as Frank does the same. Without another look at him, she slams the door hard behind her – so hard that it rattles the wall between them. Right then and there, as she listens to the blessed sound of silence for the first time in forever, Laurel makes up her mind.

If it’s a game he wants, it’s a game he’ll get. 

 

–

 

The next time Frank brings a girl home, it oh-so-conveniently happens to be the night before she has a huge project due for her criminal law class.

She is sitting on her bed typing on her laptop when they first start going at it, so she plugs in her music and tries to ignore them – though that isn’t easy, because his bed is practically pounding the wall behind her. 

But the music only ends up distracting her more, and so she turns it off and struggles to ignore the sounds coming from next door instead.

“Actus reus, the “guilty act,” can consist of possession, omission, or-“

“ _Right there, Frank – oh, Christ!_ ”

Laurel clenches her jaw so hard her teeth ache. “Actus reus, the “guilty act,” can-“

“ _Fuck, you feel so good, baby._ ”

She is about to start pulling her hair out.

“Actus reus-“

“ _I-I’m gonna come – Frank!_ ”

About two seconds away from killing them and then herself, Laurel slams her laptop shut and echoes disdainfully under her breath, “ _Frank_.”

She springs up from her bed and storms into her bathroom, grabbing her broom and jabbing the end of it against the wall behind her bed with a growl of frustration. Frank probably hears, but of course it has no effect on him, and after a moment, she thinks she actually hears him laugh through the wall.

That’s it.

Laurel sets down the broom and makes her way out into the hallway, down two flights of stairs until she finds what she’s looking for: the little red box with the fire alarm.

She yanks the lever downward, and the alarm blares, and the sprinklers in the stairwell come on, showering her in freezing cold water. Then, she books it, sprinting down the stairs and out the door, and coming to stand in front of the building.

It doesn’t take long for the rest of the residents to follow suit, and when she sees some of them blinking the sleep out of their eyes and shivering, she feels pretty bad about doing it – that is, until she spots Frank scurrying out the door in only his boxer briefs, with a petite blonde at his side who must be his latest hook-up.

He’s soaked, miserable, shuddering in the cold autumn night, and the girl, wearing only her bra and panties, looks ticked.

Clearly, Laurel has killed the mood. She can’t help but grin secretly to herself.

The fire department arrives, and after determining that it was only a false alarm, they all file back in. She sees Frank glaring at her suspiciously out of the corner of his eye, as the blonde girl mutters something under her breath about “fucking pranksters… ruined the mood,” and tells Frank that’s she’s going home.

Laurel has the slightest inkling that he may be on to her.  

 

–

 

Three weeks into their little game, Laurel makes up her mind that she really likes screwing with him.

Normally, she isn’t the kind of person to go out of her way to fuck with people. She doesn’t like confrontation. But she can only lose so much sleep and be driven to her wit’s end without exacting some kind of revenge, and Frank shows no sign of stopping or modifying his habits.

She buys a box of condoms one day and leaves them in front of his door, with a note attached that reads: _Thought you might be running low._

Then, a few hours later when she’s studying in the library – because God knows she can’t do it at her apartment – her phone lights up with a text from an unknown number. She frowns, and sets down her book to read it.

- _Got your present. How neighborly of you to think of me_

Laurel gapes at the screen, then types a reply.

- _Who is this?_

Hardly a second later, her phone vibrates again.

- _Who do you think?_

Oh my God.

- _Frank how the hell did you get my number?_

- _Bribed the landlord_

Of course he did.

- _You’re welcome. Now stop texting me_

- _I’m glad you want to make sure I’m using protection_

Laurel rolls her eyes for what must be like the hundredth time tonight. This feels weird, texting him like they know each other, like they’re _friends_  – when they’re not. Far from it. In fact, she’d consider him more an enemy.

- _Yeah, well, the world doesn’t need any more of you_

- _Low blow, Lauren. I think I’ll cry about that later_

- _My name is LAUREL_

- _Of course. Lauren_

- _I’m done talking to you. Goodbye_

She tosses her phone down on the table, and tries to fight the urge to check it when it buzzes again a moment later. 

In the end, however, her curiosity wins out over her common sense, even though the whole reason she came to the library in the first place was to  _escape_  Frank.

- _All right. But just so you know, those condoms won’t cut it. I can only use Magnum XL._

He’s kidding. He’s got to be kidding.

Laurel stares at her phone in shock for a whole sixty seconds. She can almost see the smug grin on his face as she furiously taps out a response.

- _Sorry I neglected to get a gift receipt._

Before he has time to answer, Laurel turns off her phone and throws it back down onto the table, returning to her book and trying to bite back the ghost of a smile that crosses her lips.

He’s so infuriating. She doesn’t know why she’s smiling.

 

–

 

When she gets home that night, her eyelids droopy from exhaustion and her limbs heavy, she finds a blue box and black one with gold lettering resting on her doormat. There’s no note, but she doesn’t need one; she knows who they’re from.

She gives an audible groan. What  _now_?

Laurel picks them up, and finds that it’s exactly what she was afraid it would be: Trojan Magnum XL condoms, along with the box she’d given him before.

That’s it – this has gone too far.

“ _Frank_!” she yells.

It only takes a moment for his apartment door to open, and for him to step out, dressed in a waistcoat with his sleeves rolled up to expose his forearms. 

She tries not to notice how good he looks in it – she really does – but she fails, and her eyes linger on his arms for just a half a second too long.

Snapping out of it, Laurel knits her eyebrows together. “What, were you waiting for me to get home or something?”

“Wanted to see your reaction.”

She shakes her head. “Why would you – no, you know what? Whatever. I don’t want these. Stop leaving stuff here.”

He feigns surprise. “I just figured you’d need ‘em, what with the incredible amount of sex you’re having.”

Her mouth falls open, and it takes her a moment to recover from that.

“Okay, now you’re just being a jackass. You…you’re the worst neighbor I’ve ever had!”

“I could say the same for you,” he tells Laurel, taking a step toward her. “I have to say, I’ve never had a neighbor try so hard to cockblock me. Yeah, I know it was you who pulled the fire alarm. Happened conveniently after you stopped hitting my wall.”

“Maybe I-I wouldn’t have to…cockblock you, if you’d just stop having obnoxiously loud sex against my wall!” she spits, then sighs. “Look, just stop leaving things in front of my door. And  _stop_  texting me. Delete my number. We’re not friends.  _I don’t like you_.”

Her words don’t affect him in the slightest. He doesn’t even blink, and she hates him for it, hates his cocky confidence and nonchalance and mammoth ego.

“Fair enough,” he says. “Have a good night, Lauren.”

“Laure _l_ ,” she corrects him, then holds out the boxes of condoms. “And… take these.”

Frank shakes his head. “Keep ‘em. I have plenty, believe me.”

She only looks at him, pursing her lips into an irritated line, before reaching into her pocket for her key and unlocking her door. Just as she’s about to step inside, however, his voice sounds out to stop her.

“Oh, and good luck finding a guy big enough to use those.”

He motions to the extra-large condoms in her hand.

Laurel chucks both boxes at him – hard – before stalking inside her apartment and closing the door behind her.


End file.
